In
order to understand the outlook and
reactions of Arabs, including
Palestinian, one must take seriously the
long, tragic history of anti-Arabism.
Anti-Arabism is prejudice or hostility
against people of Arabic origin. It is
considered to be the same as anti-Arab
racism and is associated with
“Islamophobia” (an
irrational fear or prejudice towards
Muslims or Islam)
although it must be remembered that
there are many Arab Christians. This has
created sensitivities which influence
how Arabs relate to the Western world.

There is a prominent historical cause of
Arab suspicion of and resentment towards
the West, namely the Crusades.

THE REASON FOR THE CRUSADES

A great deal has been written about why
the Crusades happened. Modern
scholarship tends not to accept the old
idea that the Crusades were simply acts
of European colonialism carried out for
economic reasons and to gain political
power. (In fact the crusades were very
costly to those involved). However, such
views are still widespread and it is
true that there were aspects of
colonialism and power-politics.

Modern
scholars believe that the Crusades were
carried out for religious reasons. It is
interesting that since the late 19th
century the Crusades have been known in
Arabic as “al-hurub al-salibiyya,” “The
Wars of the Cross.”

The Crusaders took seriously the
teaching of St Augustine on justified
Christian violence, and they were
supported by St Bernard of Clairvaux and
St Thomas Aquinas. Such violence
required a just cause and right
intentions. Fighting for justice was
justified. There was also a heavy
emphasis on the crusades being acts of
personal penance. People joined up to
achieve divine forgiveness. It is, of
course, similar to the Muslim concept of
jihad, holy war.

The major cause of religious concern was
the Muslim conquests of much of Eastern
Christendom. They had conquered two
thirds of the Christian world in the
East: the Middle East, North Africa and
Asia Minor. More or less only modern
Greece remained Christian. Now the
Muslim forces were moving towards
Constantinople and Europe.
There were already Muslim attacks
in Spain and Portugal. Byzantine Emperor
Alexius I appealed to Pope Urban II for
military help against Muslim attacks in
the East. This fired up the passions in
Europe for the First Crusade which was
preached as a campaign to liberate
Jerusalem from the Muslims. So the
Crusades were by no means unprovoked
(see below).

THE ARAB MEMORY OF THE CRUSADES

Arabs tend to remember the Crusades
rather like Jewish people remember the
Holocaust.

The carnage and the desecration caused a
lasting trauma to Muslims. When I was
Rector of Christ Church, Jerusalem I
decided to invite local Muslims to a
Reception. One shopkeeper, having
received an invitation, approached me
angrily and very soon was talking about
the Crusades. He pointed at my clerical
collar and said: “I’m sorry to say this
but when I see that it makes me think of
the devil.”

It is necessary to approach accounts of
the crusaders’ violence critically. It
is a controversial area. There may be
elements of exaggeration even amongst
Christian eyewitnesses (particularly
when Abbot Raymond of Aguilers writes: “In
the temple of Solomon, the horses waded
in the blood up to their knees, nay, up
to the bridle. It was a just and
marvellous judgement of God, that this
place should be filled with the blood of
unbelievers.”).
Then there can be anti-Christian
propaganda as well as uncritical folk
tales. I certainly do not say this to
whitewash the crusaders but rather to
further the truth.

On the other hand, bearing in mind that
no history is completely objective, it
is important to remember that some Roman
Catholic writers may tend to be
over-zealous in defending the Popes who
instigated the crusades. Also writers
who tend to be anti-Arab or anti-Muslim
may fall into the trap of whitewashing
the crusaders. Such views will be
strengthened by the violent actions of
Muslim fundamentalists today.

Some
scholars comment that we must enter into
the outlook of the crusaders, rather
than judge them by 21st
century standards. It was accepted that
both the buildings and the people of a
city which resisted capture, as
Jerusalem did, belonged to the invaders.
It is claimed that, although many were
killed, many were set free. The
population of cities which did not
resist capture were “left unmolested,
retained their property, and allowed to
worship freely.”[1]

Most of the time the crusaders and the
Muslims lived largely at peace, in a
political stalemate, trading with each
other and even intermarrying. Crusaders
often assimilated into Muslim culture
and they made alliances with nearby
Muslim states.

Jonathan Riley-Smith, Professor of
Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge
University and the author of several
books on the crusades writes: “Many
Muslims … still reckon that the crusades
initiated centuries of European
aggression and exploitation. Some
Catholics want the pope to apologise to
the world for them. Liberals of all
stripes see the crusades as examples of
bigotry and fanaticism. Almost all these
opinions are, however, based on
fallacies. The denigrators of the
crusades stress their brutality and
savagery, which cannot be denied; but
they offer no explanation other than the
stupidity, barbarism and intolerance of
the crusaders, on whom it has become
conventional to lay most blame. Yet the
original justification for crusading was
Muslim aggression; and in terms of
atrocities, the two sides' scores were
about even.”[2]

However, Professor Riley-Smith adds:
“Ventures of this sort easily attract
psychopaths, and no method was devised
whereby the crusades could screen
recruits for suitability. … The passions
unleashed, when combined with the
stresses of crusading, led to acts of
unspeakable horror … [there were] many
awful atrocities: ferocious pogroms
against Jews that were features of the
preliminaries of many crusades, gross
examples of ethnic cleansing in which
non-Christians were driven from towns of
religious or strategic significance by
deliberate campaigns of terror, and
collapses in military discipline that
led to appalling consequences for any
wretches unlucky enough to be found in
the crusaders' path.”[3]

It is important to realize that many
Muslims, including respectable Muslim
organizations do actually take the
accounts of the carnage literally. For
example, in the UK
the Foundation for Science Technology
and Civilisation (FSTC) is a respected
educational entity which seeks to
promote “an accurate account of Muslim
Heritage and its contribution to present
day science, technology and
civilisation.” It holds conferences and
teacher training seminars. It takes the
accounts literally. Below (and in the
footnotes) are some of the accounts
concerned.

For many Arabs, therefore, the crusades
are seen as an invasion by uncivilised,
religiously-fanatical Barbarians sent by
corrupt regimes. In the light of later
European colonialism (e.g. the 20th
century carving up of the Middle East
between France and Britain), Israel is
seen as a new crusader state. Some Arabs
believe that the West has sought revenge
ever since Saladin took Jerusalem back,
hence its support for the State of
Israel. In fact early European Zionists
began to use the language of the
crusades themselves. Since the 1950s
America has been seen as a crusader
state and such concepts are widespread
amongst ordinary Arabs. A recent survey
found they were taught in Saudi Arabian
school textbooks. Osama bin Laden
regularly uses such descriptions of the
Western powers.

CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS OF THE CRUSADES

In June 1097 about 60,000 people,
including 6000 knights, started out for
Jerusalem. Two years later, after much
suffering, their numbers were down to
15,000, including 1500 knights. Most of
their horses and pack animals were dead.

It
is this force which, in July 1099,
conquered Jerusalem and Iftikhar ad-Daula
and his army were allowed to leave under
safe conduct, but terrible violence was
perpetrated against the remaining
population. It is said that Jerusalem
prior to the crusades was a place filled
with a thriving trade, scholars and madrasas [schools]. The crusades
destroyed all such wealth and, above
all, scholarship.
The Christian occupation of the Dome of
the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque by the
Knights Templar was a terrible
desecration in Muslim eyes. For 88 years
there was a cross on the Dome of the
Rock.

One historian[4]
describes how “the brains of young
children were dashed out against walls;
infants were thrown over the
battlements; every woman that could be
seized was violated; men were roasted at
fires; some were ripped open, to see if
they had swallowed gold; the Jews were
driven into their synagogue and burnt; a
massacre of nearly 70,000 persons took
place …”

Abbot Raymond of Agiles, an eyewitness,
wrote: “When our men took the main
defences, we saw astonishing things
amongst the Saracens. Some were
beheaded, and that’s the least that
could happen to them. Others were
pierced through and so threw themselves
from the heights of the walls; others
after having suffered at length were
thrown in to the flames.” I will add
further gory details in the footnote.[5]

In late 1098 crusaders captured Ma’arat
an’Numan, a Syrian city near Aleppo.
Christian chronicler Robert the Monk
wrote: “‘Our men …. walked through the
roads, places, on the roofs, and feasted
on the slaughter just like a lioness who
had her cubs taken from her. They cut
into pieces, and put to death children,
the young and the old crumbling under
the weight of years. They did that in
groups…our men grabbed everybody who
fell into their hands. They cut bellies
open, and took out gold coins. Oh
detestable cupidity of gold! Streams of
blood ran on the roads of the city; and
everywhere lay corpses. Oh blinded
nations and destined to death; none of
that multitude accepted the Christian
faith. At last Bohemond brought out all
those he had first invited to lock
themselves in the tower of the place. He
ordered that all old women be put to
death, and also old men, whose age had
rendered useless; then all the rest he
ordered to be take to Antioch to be sold
as slaves. This massacre of the Turks
took place on 1 December (1098); on
Sunday; but on this day not all work
could be accomplished; so the following
day our men killed the rest.”[6]

William of Tyre: “The place was
inundated with the blood …. We could not
watch without horror that multitude of
deaths, their limbs scattered laying on
the ground on all sides, and the flood
of blood inundating the surface of the
ground.”[7]

Raymond of Aguilers commented: “It was a
just and splendid judgment of God that
this place should be filled with the
blood of the unbelievers … the city was
filled with corpses and blood.”[8]

Christian chronicler Fulcher visited
Jerusalem December 1099 five months
after it was taken and wrote: “Oh what a stench
there was around the walls of the city,
both within and without, from the
rotting bodies of the Saracens slain by
our comrades at the time of the capture
of Jerusalem, lying where they were
hunted down.”[9]

MUSLIM ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS

It should be remembered that, although
the excessive violence of the Crusaders
cannot be justified, the Crusades
themselves were not unprovoked. Between
634 and 1075 the Muslims conquered huge
areas of the Christian world from India
to Portugal and the borders of France,
including the Holy Land. They threatened
a complete takeover of Christendom, much
to the alarm of the Christians.

Many Christians were killed, some being
executed for not converting to Islam.
Churches and monasteries, including the
church of the Holy Sepulchre, were
destroyed. Christians (and Jewish
people) were dhimmis (second-class
citizens) under Muslim rule and suffered
violence and humiliation, e.g. being
forced to wear distinctive clothing and
being treated with contempt. They also
had to pay the excessive jizyah tax to
avoid being attacked.

In 1094 the Byzantine Christian Emperor
Alexius Conenus I asked Pope Urban I for
help to defeat the Muslims, and the
Crusades began.[10]

OUTLINE OF THE CRUSADES

Between 1099 and 1291 there were nine
crusades (although sometimes the 5th
& 6th are combined as are the
8th & 9th):

1.1096-1099 The First Crusade

2.1147-1149 The Second Crusade

This
was a largely unsuccessful crusade by
the French and Germans.

3.1189-1192 The Third Crusade

In 1187, Saladin, Sultan of Egypt,
recaptured Jerusalem. Richard I of
England (Lionheart), Philip II of France
and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I led a
crusade. Frederick drowned in 1190 and
Philip left in 1191. the crusaders
followed Richard almost to Jerusalem
but, lacking food and water, they made a
truce with Saladin and Richard returned
home in 1192.

4.1201-1204 The Fourth Crusade

The crusaders were diverted from their
original purpose and sacked Christian
Constantinople. This resulted in the
Byzantine Empire being divided between
the crusaders and Venice.

5.1218-1221 The Fifth Crusade

The Fourth Lateran Council made a plan
to recover the Holy Land using Hungarian
and Austrian armies. But, after a defeat
at Cairo in July 1221 they surrendered.

6.1228-1229 The Sixth Crusade

This did not have the official blessing
of the Pope.

7.1248-1254 The Seventh Crusade

In 1260 Palestine became part of the
Mameluke Empire. The Mamelukes were
originally slaves of Egyptian Arabs.
They practised tolerance but the land
became impoverished. They conquered
Antioch in 1268.

8.1270 The Eighth Crusade

Louis IX of France went to the aid of
Christians in Syria but was diverted to
Tunis where he died.

9.1271-1272 The Ninth Crusade

Edward I of England went to Syria but
little was achieved before a truce.

1291 The Muslims captured Tripoli in
1289 and Acre in 1291 and the Crusaders
finally left, except for mounting raids
on the coast. The Muslim rulers
therefore depopulated and destroyed
coastal towns which impoverished the
coastal area for centuries.

POST-CRUSADE HISTORY

1327: The Muslim Ottoman Turks capture
Nicea from the Byzantines.

1371: The Ottomans invade Bulgaria and
annex the Balkans.

1453-6: The Muslims conquer
Constantinople, the capital of the
Christian Byzantine Empire and bring the
empire to and end.

1565 Muslims besiege Malta.
Protestant reformers are now teaching
that crusade against Muslims is a sin.

1571
The Ottomans are defeated at the naval
Battle of Lepanto which ends their
dominance in the Mediterranean.

1683 The Muslims besiege Vienna again
but after several weeks are driven out
by European armies.

1798 Napoleon invaded Palestine. Arabs
and Jewish people fled the land.
Palestinian nationalism probably began
to develop at this time because
Palestinian Arabs revolted against
Turkish rule.

1882 The first Aliyah (“going up to the
Land”) of Jewish people took place as
they fled from the Russian pogroms
(persecutions of Jewish people). The
Ottoman Turks were hostile to this
return.

1905 The second Aliyah from Russia took
place and Tel Aviv was founded by the
Zionists.

1914-15 Between 85,000 and 100,000
Jewish people lived in Palestine by
1914, together with about 615,000 Arabs.

1916 The British said they would back
Arab independence in exchange for Arab
support in the war. Other countries,
including the US supported Arab
independence. The Arab Revolt against
the Turks, led by Lawrence of Arabia,
took place on this understanding. But at
the same time the Anglo-French
Sykes-Picot Agreement planned to divide
Palestine between the British and the
Allies with France being given Lebanon
and Syria.

1917
Victorious British General Allenby
entered Jerusalem and established
British rule over the land.
The Arabs
felt betrayed by both the British
Balfour Declaration (calling for a
Jewish state in Palestine) and the
handing over of Syria to the French
because of the British promises of
independence.

1919 The American King-Crane Commission
was sent to Palestine to seek local
opinion and the Arabs lobbied for
Palestine to be annexed to Syria. They
were not heard.

1929
There were Arab nationalist riots this
year, partly caused by Arab fears that
Jewish people were going to undermine
Arab control of Temple Mount and the Al
Aqsa Mosque.

1936 The Arab Revolt took place after
the British killed a prominent Arab
anti-British and anti-Jewish agitator.
Hundreds of Jewish people and Arabs were
killed.

1937 The British Peel Commission
recommended partition of the land into
an Arab state and a smaller Jewish state
but this was firmly rejected by the
Arabs.

1939-45 During World War II the British
ruthlessly suppressed the riots and
Hajj Amin El Husseini, the
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, fled to Iraq
where he became a strong supporter of
Germany.

November 29th 1947 On the
recommendation of the United Nations
Special Commission on Palestine (UNSCOP),
the United Nations General Assembly
decided by a two-thirds majority,
contrary to strongly-held Arab opinion,
that the land should be partitioned into
Arab and Jewish states. The Arabs
rejected the plan.

December 17th 1947 The Arab
League Council decided to fight against
the Jewish people They rioted and
besieged Jerusalem. So began what
Palestinians call the Nakhba
(“Disaster”). Tragically there were
massacres on both sides. There were
well-documented instances (e.g. Ain al-Zeitoum
and Er-Rama) where the Israelis demanded
Muslims left their villages for Lebanon
on pain of death. Some Israeli
historians claim that many war crimes:
murders,
massacres, and rapes took place.
But most Palestinians refugees made
their own decision to flee the country
for fear of their lives. In April 1948
most Arabs left Haifa. Some Arabs were
told by Jewish forces that they were to
be removed from their homes temporarily.
But in many cases this led to permanent
exile. In 1952 a memorandum from the
Higher Arab Committee shows that Arab
states did agree to take Palestinians
until fledgling Israel could be
destroyed although some Israeli
historians claim that the Arab
governments really wanted the refugees
to stay in Palestine. Because the West
was seen as supporting Israel they were
blamed as well as Israel. This was seen
by many as a new crusade, setting up a
new crusader kingdom in Palestine.

Since 1948 the Arabs have suffered
humiliating defeats at the hands of the
Israelis, backed by the Americans. At
the hands of the Israelis they have
experienced:

·
The killing of many Palestinians.

·
Demolition of many homes.

·
Uprooting of olive trees.

·
Humiliating searches with excessive
waits at border checkpoints.

·
Border closures which undermine the
Palestinian standard of living.

·
Prevention from travelling to other
Palestinian towns or even to their own
farms.

According to surveys, 37% of Muslim Arab
Americans have experienced
discrimination (45% of students) since
9/11. It is claimed that some movies
portray Arabs in the same way that Nazi
movies portrayed Jewish people. The
Christian Right, because of its strong
eschatological support for Israel, is
prone to anti-Arabism.

Over two thirds of Muslim and Arab
Australians have experienced racism
since 9/11.

In the UK, TV presenter Robert Kilroy
Silk had to resign after writing an
anti-Arab article in the Express on
Sunday in January 2004.

SOME ARAB PROBLEMS WITH THE WESTERN
WORLD

1.The history of the Crusades

·
(See above)

2.The history of Western Colonialism

·
The arrogance of Britain and France in
carving up the Middle East between them
in the early 20th century,
arbitrarily drawing national boundaries

·
Palestinian Arabs feel betrayed by the
Western powers who promised independence
to them in return for assistance in the
world wars.

3.Gentile Zionism

·
Many Arabs see the establishment of
Israel, with widespread Western support,
on Islamic Arab land as arrogant and
sacrilegious.

·
Palestinians feel humiliated by Israel
and its Western supporters (NB. Arab
culture places supreme importance on
honour and reputation).

4.Western Hypocrisy

·
Arabs see many examples of Western
hypocrisy. For example, some deeply
resent that, for all its calls for
democracy in the Middle East, the West
did not recognize Hamas as the
democratically elected Palestinian
government. (the West also needs to be
aware that Western-style democracy needs
to be introduced very carefully – and
maybe modified – in countries which are
not fully ready for it, i.e. lacking
political stability, traditions of
tolerance and compromise, respect for
minorities, more used to powerful
dictators, etc.).

5.The Invasion of Iraq

·
Many Arabs would see this as a further
example of Western colonialism.

6.Islamophobia

·
There are many Christian Arabs but
Muslims resent Western Islamophobia.

7.Western Lifestyle

·
The West is seen by many Arabs as
affluent but morally decadent (thinking
that modern films accurately portray the
Christian West).

·
Arabs can feel that Western culture is
dominating and defeating Arab culture.

[1] Thomas F.
Madden is Associate Professor
and Chair of the Department of
History at Saint Louis
University. He is author of A
Concise History of the Crusades
and co-author of The Fourth
Crusade.

[4] J W Draper
A History of the Intellectual
Development of Europe; Vol II;
Revised edition; George Bell and
Sons, London 1875; pp 22-23

[5]
[WARNING: This footnote contains
gory details]
Raymond continues: “We could see
in the roads and in the places
of Jerusalem bits and pieces of
heads, hands, and feet.
Everywhere we could only walk
through cadavers. But all that
was only little…” He wrote the
Mosque of Omar; “There was so
much blood in the old temple of
Solomon that dead corpses swam
in it. We could see hands
floating and arms that went to
glue themselves to bodies that
were not theirs; we could not
distinguish which arm belonged
to which body. The men who were
doing the killing could hardly
bar the smoke from the corpses.”
(Abbot Raymond of Agiles; in G.
Le Bon: LA Civilisation des
Arabs; Syracuse; 1884, p 249).

Radulph of Caen: “In Maarra our
troops boiled pagan adults in
cooking pots they impaled
children on spits and devoured
them grilled.” (In Janet Abu
Lughod: Before European
Hegemony; OUP, 1989 p.107).
William of Tyre said common
practices for crusaders to roast
and eat flesh of Turks.

[9]
Fulcher: Expedition p. 132, in M
A Hiyari: Crusader Jerusalem at
p. 140. [The above footnotes are
taken from a paper produced by
the Foundation for Science
Technology and Civilisation
entitled “Jerusalem” 2005. The
Foundation for Science
Technology and Civilisation (FSTC)
is a United Kingdom based
educational entity which was
formed to popularise,
disseminate and promote an
accurate account of Muslim
Heritage and its contribution to
present day science, technology
and civilisation. As well as
owning, developing and
maintaining MuslimHeritage.com,
FSTC has produced publications,
conferences and teacher training
seminars on the subject].

The Muslim armies defeated
the Byzantine Christians in
Syria and the Holy Land (634 –
636). Thousands of Christians,
Samaritans and Jewish people
were killed. Churches and
monasteries were destroyed.

The Muslims went on to
conquer Jerusalem (638), most of
Iran (638-650), Egypt (639-642),
North Africa (643-707) and
besieged Constantinople the
capital of the Christian
Byzantine Empire (673-678). They
went on to conquer the lower
Indus Valley (710-713) and Spain
(711-713). However they were
defeated at the Battle of Poitier (or Tours) in the
kingdom of the Franks (France)
in 732.

Christians were persecuted in
the early 8th
century. Some individuals and
groups were executed for
refusing to convert to Islam.
For example 63 out of 70
Christian pilgrims from Iconium
were executed in Caesarea. The
rest converted. Sixty Christian
pilgrims were crucified in
Jerusalem.

There were also attacks on
Christians within territories
controlled by Muslims. Caliph Harun al-Rashid destroyed the
Church of Mary Magdalene in
Jerusalem (807). Christians were
attacked by Muslims in Palestine
(813) and many fled the country.
Non-Muslim places of worship
were destroyed under Caliph al-Matawakkil
(850). In 937 and again in 1009
(under Caliph al-Hakim) the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in
Jerusalem was destroyed and
other churches there attacked.
He also oppressed Christians.
There were anti-Christian riots
in Jerusalem in 966.

The Church of the Holy
Sepulchre was rebuilt in 1048
but its property was confiscated
in 1055.

By 923 the Christian kingdoms
of Armenia, Byzantium, Bulgaria,
Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina,
Croatia, and Albania, and parts
of Poland and Hungary, were also
conquered by Muslims.
In 1071 the Muslims
conquered Aanatolia and
Palestine, conquering Jerusalem
again in 1073. They also
conquered Nicea (1075).

Soon after this (1094) the
Byzantine Christian Emperor
Alexius Conenus I asked Pope
Urban I for help to defeat the
Muslims.

[Muslim expansionism
continued until the 17th
century, conquering
Constantinople in 1453 and
besieging Vienna in 1529 and
1683].

There were several reasons
for Muslim expansionism. One was
the mission to bring the world
under Allah. Mohammad himself
had set an example here. But
there were also economic and
political motives. Non-Muslims
were afforded dhimmi (second
class) status which was
frequently oppressive. They had
to pay the excessive jizyah tax
to avoid being attacked. When
they paid the tax the dhimmis
had to hang his head whilst an
official held his beard and hit
him on the jaw. Church services
and bells were banned.
Non-Muslims had to wear
distinctive clothing. Initially
this was a yellow patch and
later blue clothes. Their houses
had to be lower than those of
Muslims. Under al-Mutawwakil
Christians (and Jewish people)
were made to fix wooden images
of devils on their doors.They were not allowed to
ride horses. Their testimony was
not accepted in court. Church
building was restricted.

In 1011 al-Hakim ordered
dhimmis to wear black turbans.
Christians had to wear an
18-inch wooden cross and Jewish
people a large block of wood. In
the late 11th century
Solomon ha—Kohen en Joseph, a
Jewish writer in Palestine,
wrote a poem describing how the
dhimmis in Palestine suffered
the destruction of their crops,
desecration of their cemeteries,
violence and death.

A medieval Muslim scholar,Ibn Khaldun (1332—1406)
wrote: “In the Muslim community,
the holy war is a religious
duty, because of the
universalism of the Muslim
mission and (the obligation to)
convert everybody to Islam
either by persuasion or by
force.” He admits that Muslims
massacred many European
Christians who rebelled.

Violence reduced under
Ottoman rule (1517-1917) but
dhimmis still endured the sort
of degrading and humiliating
conditions mentioned above.